AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As the world watched Thursday evening, President Biden held his first solo news conference this year, after hosting a NATO summit in Washington, D.C., in which he accidentally referred to the Ukrainian President Zelensky as Russian President Putin before quickly correcting himself.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Russia will not prevail in this war. Ukraine will prevail in this war. And we will stand with them every single step of the way. That’s what the compact says loudly and clearly.

And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. President Putin? He’s going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. I’m so focused on beating President Putin, we’ve got to worry about it. Anyway, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: I’m better.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: You are a hell of a lot better.

AMY GOODMAN: Later Thursday, amidst mounting calls for President Biden to end his presidential campaign due to concerns about his physical and mental fitness for office, Biden vowed in his news conference to stay in the race and “finish the job” to defeat Donald Trump in November.

As Biden spoke, former President Trump was meeting with the far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Mar-a-Lago, who is now also head of the European Union and has vowed to, quote, “make Europe great again.”

After Biden started his news conference nearly an hour late, the first question came from Jeff Mason of Reuters.

JEFF MASON: Mr. President, your political future has hung over the NATO summit a little bit this week. Speaker Pelosi made a point of suggesting that your decision on whether to stay in the race was still open. George Clooney and a handful of lawmakers have called on you to step aside. Reuters is reporting tonight the UAW leadership is concerned about your ability to win.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: UAW just endorsed me. But go ahead.

JEFF MASON: Thank you. My question for you is: How are you incorporating these developments into your decision to stay? And separately, what concerns do you have about Vice President Harris’s ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, did I think she’s not qualified to be president. So, let’s start there, number one. The fact is that the consideration is that I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again.

Secondly, the idea — I served in the Senate a long time. The idea that senators and congressmen running for office worry about the ticket is not unusual. And I might add, there were at least five presidents running, or incumbent presidents, who had lower numbers than I have now later in the campaign. So, there’s a long way to go in this campaign. And so, I’m just going to keep moving, keep moving.

AMY GOODMAN: As President Biden noted, the UAW did endorse him. But Reuters is also reporting that the UAW President Shawn Fain met with the union’s executive board Thursday to discuss his deep concerns with Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump.

After Thursday night’s key news conference, which a Bloomberg reporter had called his “big boy press conference” — a term later used by Biden’s White House press secretary and national security spokesperson, John Kirby — three more House Democrats called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. Congressmember Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, issued a statement that, quote, “The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course. … My conscience requires me to speak up and put loyalty to the country and to democracy ahead of my great affection for, and loyalty to, the President and those around him,” unquote.

This comes after The New York Times editorial board published a piece this week headlined “The Democratic Party Must Speak the Plain Truth to the President,” in which it argued, “Donald Trump’s candidacy for a second term poses a grave threat to American democracy,” but that Biden, quote, “does not seem to understand that he is now the problem — and that the best hope for Democrats to retain the White House is for him to step aside,” the Times wrote.

In a minute, we’ll talk more about NATO, Ukraine and Gaza, but we’re going to begin with a roundtable of three guests to discuss the calls for Biden to drop out or stay in the race.

In Washington, D.C., Medea Benjamin is with us. She’s co-founder of CodePink, co-author of the books NATO: What You Need to Know and War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict.

Joining us from Maryland is Bill Fletcher, longtime labor, racial justice, international activist who’s on the editorial board of The Nation, co-founder of the Ukrainian Solidarity Network.

And in Los Angeles, we’re joined by David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, who’s been following all of this closely, has a recent piece headlined “Why the Bid to Push Out Biden Is Losing.”

David, let’s begin with you in California. What was your assessment? I mean, we played some of the gaffes of President Biden. They were early on, actually, before he got into a lot of substance. Though his voice faltered and was hoarse and raspy, he spent an hour talking about foreign policy. But that beginning, where he was talking about Kamala Harris and why couldn’t she be president, or could she be president, and the whole issue of passing the torch to the next generation, as President Biden had said when he was running last time that he simply saw himself as a bridge to the next generation. Take it all on, David.

DAVID DAYEN: Well, I don’t go in for theater criticism a whole lot, so I don’t know that I’m super interested in addressing the theatrics of the whole thing. I think people were looking for a sign out of this that maybe was unreasonable. People were looking for him to either fall off the podium or recite the Gettysburg Address from memory. And neither of those things happened. There was no clear kind of signal of — the problem is that when you lose faith with not just the American people, but the Democratic Party, it’s hard to restore that. I mean, the guy is not going to age backwards. People saw what they saw in the debate. And I don’t know that there’s a good way to unsee that. I don’t care how many appearances publicly that he does, scripted or unscripted.

He articulated his foreign policy. Some, our other guests on the roundtable may have problems with that foreign policy, but he certainly knew the details. And substantively, he gave, you know, a performance that would be not unlike other performances by other presidents at press conferences. So, you know, out of the context of all that has been happening for the last two weeks, I think this would have been quite uneventful, but because of that context, everything is looked at, you know, finely grained, and things that would not be a headline at all, from you or anybody else, are now turned into headlines.

And that actually speaks to the problem of his candidacy. I mean, at this point, the media is out for blood. They’re looking for every gaffe, every misspeak, anything to reinforce this argument. And then they can go to a member of Congress and say, “Hey, he said this. What do you think now?” I don’t see that subsiding. I think that that will only grow. And it speaks to whether this president — it’s not necessarily about fitness for office, but it’s about whether or not he can withstand that in the rigors of a presidential campaign, given that this is just going to snowball and snowball.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the congressmembers, the insiders, the Biden team members, Shawn Fain, who — early on, the UAW endorsed President Biden. The significance of what they’re saying? And George Clooney, this very well known at — this piece, op-ed in The New York Times, saying that he loves President Biden. He’s one of the largest fundraisers, organized a historic fundraiser, I think that raised something like $26 million. He said President Biden is simply not the same and can’t beat Trump. Talk about — name the names and the significance of the people who are saying, “Get out,” to Biden.

DAVID DAYEN: Well, Fain, if he were to come forward, would actually be the first labor leader to have anything to say regarding President Biden’s candidacy. Labor has been pretty silent. They’ve backed him up. President Biden spoke at the AFL-CIO convention on Wednesday and got overwhelming support. Labor is kind of the only mass membership organization that we have on the Democratic left anymore.

Most of these are foundation-funded. This kind of push to move Biden aside has largely, at least in the perception, been driven by donors, by people like George Clooney, elite donors and rich people. You know, Biden at the press conference said corporate profits were too high. And that’s true. They have elevated since the pandemic. And, you know, the donor class that’s desperate to get him out of the race is probably unlikely to favor a substitute that would say something like that. And I think that’s a consideration that people need to think about.

I think, in this case, the donor class and large segments of the Democratic Party, ordinary people, are aligned — that’s what the polls say — but there is a perception that this is being driven from this sort of elite group of people. That’s certainly what Biden has wanted to play up in rebutting it, saying, you know, “This is out-of-touch people who have always counted me out, who don’t like me and look down upon me, think I’m stupid, or whatever.” That has been his go-to way to parry this. And it’s been somewhat successful, although we’ll see if the dam breaks now that the NATO summit is over. Other members of Congress might come out. I think if Fain did, that might give courage to other labor leaders, who speak for millions of people, to actually do the same.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the significance of another Shawn, Sean O’Brien, head of the Teamsters, asking both the Democrats and the Republicans if he can address their conventions? The Republicans said yes. We’ll be in Milwaukee next week. He will be speaking. But he has not yet gotten OK from the Democrats, apparently, in Chicago in August.

DAVID DAYEN: Yeah, Sean O’Brien will be speaking in — I believe in primetime, at the Republican National Convention. It’s very rare for a labor leader to speak before the Republicans. O’Brien trying to position himself, no matter what party comes out of the presidential election, I suppose. It’s very unique. It’s certainly been criticized internally. It’s been criticized from folks on the Democratic left. I don’t know that he’s going to get that Democratic nod, because he’s speaking at the Republican convention. It would be almost unprecedented for someone to speak at both conventions.

So, I think it’s certainly interesting and fascinating. You know, there is this nascent campaign that the Teamsters are fighting against Amazon, where they’re trying to organize Amazon warehouses, Amazon delivery drivers, people of that nature. And, you know, I’d prefer to focus on that, but the way he’s getting wrapped up politically, you know, it’s bound to disappoint one side or the other.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Bill Fletcher into this conversation, longtime labor, racial justice, international activist, on the editorial board of The Nation magazine. As we talk about labor and the positions it’s taking and the significance of Shawn Fain, who embraced President Biden early on, has been at the White House, now the questions about — he is raising, the significance of that, to the Teamsters?

BILL FLETCHER JR.: Good morning. And thanks, Amy, for having me on.

I think that what Fain is doing, or at least reported doing, is just bringing to the surface a debate that has been going on very quietly within the ranks of the leadership of organized labor. There is concern about the situation. And so, I’m glad that Fain is raising this, absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill, you’re breaking up. Go ahead.

BILL FLETCHER JR.: Biden’s —

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

BILL FLETCHER JR.: Oh, I’m not sure why.

AMY GOODMAN: Just come very close to the computer.

BILL FLETCHER JR.: The focus — OK. The focus on Biden’s screw-ups in terms of forgetting names, etc., there’s been, I think, an exaggeration of that. You know, it’s like Republicans — like, one to remember Ronald Reagan, who forgot the name of his own secretary of HUD. Republicans can do that all the time, and it gets no press attention. Republicans could make El Cid’s body their presidential candidate, and people would accept that.

I think that the deeper problem is that something is — that Biden is an old man and that he needs to step aside, that the original commitment to be the transitional candidate, which many people, including within organized labor, embraced, was the right one. But as Chris Hayes said last night on MSNBC, that the key phrasing last night by Biden was he had to “finish the job,” and it reminded Chris of how a pitcher in baseball will want to finish a game, even when they don’t have the strength to complete. And it’s when that happens that the manager needs to say, “No, we will finish the game. We.” And that’s what the Democratic Party leadership and base has to say: “No, President Biden, we will finish the game. We’re going to ask you to step aside.”

AMY GOODMAN: There was an interesting part of the news conference yesterday where President Biden seemed to leave open the door, if his closest aides told him to go. Let’s play that clip.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The second question related to —

ZEKE MILLER: Bad nights. Bad nights, sir. How can you reassure the American people that you won’t have more bad nights, whether they be on a debate stage or it’s a matter of foreign policy?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, I’ll tell you what. The best way to assure them is the way I assure myself. And that is: Am I getting the job done? Am I getting the job done? Can you name me somebody who’s gotten more major pieces of legislation passed in three-and-a-half years? I created 2,000 jobs just last week. So, if I slow down, I can’t get the job done, that’s a sign that I shouldn’t be doing it. But there’s no indication of that yet.

AMY GOODMAN: “No indication of that yet,” in his answer to Zeke Miller of Associated Press. So, if you could respond to that, Bill Fletcher, and talk about who is sticking with him? Very interesting that the Squad is sticking with him. I mean, AOC is, though very critical on issues like Gaza, Ilhan Omar — they are sticking with him. The Congressional Black Caucus, they are sticking with him at this point. Talk about all of this.

BILL FLETCHER JR.: I think, Amy, that this is not a 25th Amendment situation. I don’t think that Biden has lost it. I actually do think there needs to be a new constitutional amendment that says that no one past the age of 80 can run for president. But I think we’re looking at a person who is declining. And that’s different.

I’ve been asking myself the same question regarding particularly the Congressional Black Caucus. And I think that it’s actually similar to what they were often thinking in 2020, which is they’re not confident that there’s another candidate that actually can bring together the right kind of base in order to win against Trump. And I think that that’s actually the wrong argument.

I think that going back to something that David said, I think, is very profound, that what happened and was very evident in the debate led to a crack in his core. The people that he needs to count on to be out in the field in 100-degree weather knocking on doors, the people he needs to raise money, the people he needs to speak on his behalf, when their confidence is shaken, that is at this point more critical than what the poll numbers say. Can’t trust the polls, either. I mean, particularly after we were told that Hillary Clinton was going to win in 2016, I just don’t trust the polls. But what I do worry about is the crack in confidence among the people that really need to move the campaign. And I think that is what Congressional Black Caucus is missing. I can’t speak about the Squad, but I suspect it’s something very similar.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to pivot to the content of the news conference. I mean, Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden over the amount of funding the U.S. has approved for NATO and Ukraine. Biden in his news conference addressed his unconditional support for both NATO and Ukraine in his opening remarks Thursday as he read off a teleprompter, appealing to U.S. voters.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: For those who thought NATO’s time had passed, they got a rude awakening when Putin invaded Ukraine. Some of the oldest and deepest fears in Europe roared back to life, because, once again, a murderous madman was on the march. But this time no one cowered in appeasement, especially the United States. We collected intelligence that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine, months before the invasion. I directed the intelligence community to be — a significant amount of intelligence to be declassified so I could start building an international coalition to oppose the invasion. Then, in February, some of you remember, I warned the world that the invasion was imminent. I rallied a coalition of 50 nations, from Europe to Asia, to help Ukraine defend itself.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was President Biden opening his news conference, his 59-minute news conference last night. I want to bring Medea Benjamin, as well, into this conversation. She’s co-author of the new book, NATO: What You Need to Know, and also co-wrote War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. Your response to President Biden last night?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, he also said, Amy, “Does NATO make the world safer?” And he put that forward as a question. And I would say that we should say a resounding no. NATO is an aggressive, secretive, military/nuclear alliance that has led us into wars around the world, that is a cover for U.S. aggression around the world, that keeps the war in Ukraine going, guarantees that it will be going on for years to come, and that has put its tentacles all over the world, has called China a threat to the NATO alliance.

And I think the bragging of Biden that since he came in, there were only nine members of NATO that had fulfilled the goal of spending more money on the military, now there are 23 — he and Trump are vying for who is responsible for that. But I think we should question: Do the people of the NATO countries really want to spend more money on the military? If they were given a chance, in a democratic fashion, to answer that, they would say no. So, I think that Trump and Biden both are actually supporting NATO, despite the things that Trump might say once in a while. Both are militarists. Both are hawkish.

And I also have to say, Amy, that when I look at Biden, I do see a very old, tottering man, but I also see babies that have been bombed and mutilated and starved in Gaza. And let’s remember, there has been a grassroots campaign, uncommitted votes in key states, Abandon Biden, for many months now, and there are many people who say that we cannot vote for a man who not only greenlighted but has been a partner in the genocide in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me bring Bill Fletcher back in, labor activist and co-founder of the Ukrainian Solidarity Network. Your response to President Biden’s positions on Ukraine and NATO, which he continually talked about last night, his great pride in increasing the size of NATO, you know, most recently bringing in Sweden and Norway?

BILL FLETCHER JR.: So, let me just divide that into two, Amy. One is that, in my opinion, NATO should never have been formed in the first place, that at the end of the Cold War, NATO should have been dissolved, that there should not have been the inclusion of any other countries in the NATO. And so, I do not look at NATO as a force for peace. I, in general, agree with Medea’s overall comments about NATO.

NATO is not keeping the Ukraine war going. Russia is. Putin is. You know, those people that were suggesting that a cessation of military assistance to Ukraine would bring about peace, well, when the Putin Republicans decided to withhold or restrict money going to Ukraine, that would have been a marvelous moment for Putin to have stepped forward and said, “OK, let’s now talk peace.” Instead, what he said, and was very clear, that now that he had Ukraine on the ropes, as far as he was concerned, that let’s go for the goal. So, I think that we’ve got to get our positions clear on this.

I think that Biden is stuck in an old frame, an old Cold War frame, when it comes to NATO. And —

AMY GOODMAN: We’re losing you again. But respond on the issue of Ukraine, Bill.

BILL FLETCHER JR.: I’m sorry. I’m not sure what part was lost. I’m saying that it was Putin who is extending the war in Ukraine, that when the Republicans cut the money, that was an excellent opportunity for Putin to have said, “All right, let’s negotiate a settlement.” He did not. Right? So he has his own objectives, and we shouldn’t misunderstand those. That’s separate from whether NATO is an instrument of peace, which it is not. It is not. And ultimately, there will need to be a different kind of security arrangement for European countries, and it should not involve the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask Medea Benjamin about what’s happening at the Republican and Democratic conventions. By the way, Democracy Now! will be in Milwaukee next week. We’re expanding to two hours Monday through Friday, each day, to cover the Republican National Convention, and in Chicago next week at the — I mean, next month to cover the Democratic National Convention. A major editorial from The New York Times editorial board says “Donald Trump Is Unfit for a Second Term.” They just published this. It says, “He is dangerous in word, deed and action.” “He is dangerous” — “He puts self over country.” “He puts self over country.” “He loathes the laws we live by.” “He loathes the laws we live by.” Medea Benjamin, what are the protest plans for next week and next month?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, first, I have to respond to Bill, because I think that it’s important to note that Biden said last night he would not talk to Putin. And that has been his position for the last two years. The only way to solve the war in Ukraine is by negotiations. And this is directly connected to NATO, because NATO has said that Ukraine has an irreversible path towards membership in NATO, which is something that Russia has been entirely against. And that means this war will keep escalating, instead of looking for a solution. And in the NATO declaration statement that it came out with at the end of the summit, there is not a word about diplomacy.

In terms of the conventions, yes, Trump is not fit for office. Trump is a danger for us and the world. And so, we, CodePink, and many other organizations will be at the convention in Milwaukee, on the streets and, hopefully, if possible, on the inside, protesting the platforms of the Republican convention, protesting Trump as a candidate, just as we will be at the Democratic convention protesting the platform and — well, we don’t know who the candidate will be there.

AMY GOODMAN: And on the inside, David Dayen, I want to end with you, talking about this latest news about Nancy Pelosi, who wields great power still as the House speaker emerita, clearly will not accept Biden saying he’s not stepping aside. Though he said it’s definitive, it’s done, she said, “We’re waiting for him to make his decision.” And the latest news is her and Obama speaking together. Obama, who Biden and President Obama, there is tension, going back to when President Biden said, what, back in 2015, that Obama pushed him not to run, and then Hillary ran and lost to President Trump. He feels he could have won. But the significance of — do you feel this is going to make a difference at this point?

DAVID DAYEN: Well, it’s certainly significant. I mean, I also think it’s a little bit unseemly that the power brokers of the Democratic Party are getting in a room and trying to come up with some machination to throw out a sitting president. I don’t think anybody looks good here. I don’t think Biden, certainly, with sort of his denial of certain realities about polling, realities about his mental acuity, I don’t think looks great. And I don’t think, you know, this sort of elite class of the Democratic Party looks terribly great trying to — you know, basically spooked by polls and trying to push out somebody who was voted for in a number of primaries, although there wasn’t really much of a primary process.

I think the problem is larger. I think the problem is that there is no sort of ability for the mass voice of the Democratic base to get involved in these kinds of conversations. Maybe by through Shawn Fain and a mass membership organization like the UAW, we can see a difference there. But, ultimately, this is an insider conversation being driven by insiders, and the public doesn’t really have a voice.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to continue, of course, this discussion next week, two hours a day, Milwaukee time 7:00 to 9:00, Eastern time 8:00 to 10:00, Democracy Now!, daily grassroots global news hour, in Milwaukee, from the 15th to the 19th. David Dayen, thanks so much for being with us, executive director of The American Prospect; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, author of a new book on NATO and previously on Ukraine; and Bill Fletcher, labor, racial justice and international activist. We want to thank you all for joining us.

This is Democracy Now! Coming up, “I’m bored, so I shoot.” The Israeli news outlet +972 Magazine interviews six Israeli soldiers following their release from active duty in Gaza. They describe being the authorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will. We’ll speak with the reporter who broke the story. Stay with us.